


Thank You for the Music (The Songs I’m Singing)

by tambuli



Series: surviving love [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: ADHD Gwen Lavorre, Beauregard Lionett Has ADHD, Fjord and Jester are married and it is not happy, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Fic, in which her aunts and uncles pitch in to help gwen have a happy childhood, this isn't SHIPPY tho so i tagged it gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25974193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tambuli/pseuds/tambuli
Summary: The homes Guinevere Lavorre grew up in were full of song and magic. Was it any wonder she grew up a bard?(The homes Guinevere Lavorre grew up in echoed with untold secrets. Was it any wonder her trade was whispers?)Or: The songs, the spells, and the stories that made Guinevere Lavorre who she is; snippets of a loving childhood caught in a tangled web of secrets.
Series: surviving love [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1375540
Comments: 11
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Technically takes place in the original, "bad" timeline of Surviving Love. 
> 
> Don't expect this to be updated very often; my priority is still the fix-it, I just wanted to push out a little bit of something something for Guinevere. I love her SO MUCH what the fuck.
> 
> This story's [official playlist](http://https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3mTJaEPCb86I035krsYFMC?si=yTK-zlDHT5ui0CjNTd4HNg) can be found here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit Sept. 7, 2020: I have ctrl-H'd all mentions of Nott to Veth; if you find an instance that looks weird or is replaced wrong, please tell me!

**_Pursuit of Happiness x Thank You for the Music: Bardic Beginnings_ **

***

Guinevere “Gwen” Lavorre, age six, is on a Mission.

 _A Mission!_ She says it to herself again, savoring the capital letter on her tongue. Uncle Caleb said that capital letters should only be used for important things, like names of places and people, like like like _Nicodranas_ and _Rosohna_ and _Bright Queen_ and _Jester_ and _Gwen._ But this mission, this Mission, is very important, and she thinks Uncle Caleb would agree that it deserves the capital.

The Mission was: _learn magic._

Last winter, on the anniversary of the war’s end, Gwen and Mama had gone to Rosohna and stayed at the Xhorhas with everybody of the Mighty Nein. Uncle Caleb was there of course, with Aunt Veth and Uncle Yeza and Luc, because they lived in Rosohna. But Uncle Caddy had come from the Blooming Grove, and Aunt Beau and Aunt Yasha had come from—maybe Baldur’s Gate? Gwen can’t remember, Aunt Beau and Aunt Yasha go to _so many places_. Everybody was there except Daddy, because he was busy shipping residuum from Tal’dorei to Nicodranas.

And that winter, Luc had told Gwen that _he was going to be an adventurer,_ just like the Mighty Nein!

“When?” she had asked breathlessly.

“When I’m bigger,” Luc had said impressively.

Gwen had looked doubtfully at Luc’s small-even-for-a-halfling frame, and said nothing.

“…when I’m older,” Luc amended.

“How much older?”

“When I’m twenty-five,” he said.

“Twenty-five!” Gwen gasped in awe. That was so far away! Gwen would be a _teenager_ by the time Luc became an adventurer! She would be _seventeen_!

Then she said, “Can I come?”

Luc squinched up his face. “You don’t have any magic, though. You have to have magic to be an adventurer.”

“No you don’t! Aunt Beau doesn’t have magic and she’s an adventurer!”

“Aunt Beau can _punch ghosts_ ,” Luc said. “That’s magic. Can _you_ punch ghosts?”

And Gwen had to admit she could not.

“Anyway,” she said, recovering, “I do too have magic.” She clapped her hands together, and all the doors and windows of the Xhorhaus slammed open.

Luc looked on, impressed. “That’s cool,” he admitted. “Can you do anything else?”

“A _lot_ ,” Gwen boasted, and clapped her hands again. All the torches in the room flickered, then turned vibrantly teal.

Luc looked even more impressed.

“Tell you what,” he said. “If you learn more magic, _and_ Aunt Jester says you can, you can come be an adventurer too. When you’re twenty-five.”

“That’s too far away!” she protested.

Luc scrunched up his face. “Mama says I can only go when I’m twenty-five, like she did,” he said, “and if I have to wait until twenty-five, so do you.”

Gwen thought this over, and admitted it was fair.

“Anyway, did you want to see the magic Uncle Caleb taught me?” Luc said. Gwen nodded furiously.

Luc could shoot _fire from his hands!_ And make it _burn stuff!_ They went into the kitchen and got a chicken leg, and Gwen threw it up in the air, and when it came down, it was charred black.

She bit into it, and wrinkled her nose.

“It’s still raw inside.”

Luc looked at the black-outside, bloody-inside chicken leg, and his nose wrinkled too. “Let’s give it to Jannik.”

So they went outside to the moorbounder stables, and tossed the charred chicken leg to Jannik, who snapped it out of the air quick as a blink.

Soon afterward, Gwen and Luc were called in by their respective parents, and after that Gwen and Mama went home to Nicodranas.

And Gwen developed her Mission.

Mama, Gwen knew, was a very good spellcaster! She could turn things into animals and make a door and step into it and come out somewhere else, and she could make wounds close up in a blink, and she could even _bring people back from the dead._

(At least, Uncle Caduceus said so.)

But those were really _big_ , powerful spells, and Gwen didn’t think she was big enough for big, powerful spells. 

So instead, she’s going to ask Daddy to teach her.

Daddy was home for a few days this time, before he went to…Waterdeep, maybe? Gwen isn’t sure.

What’s important is that Daddy is _here_.

She peeks out the porch door, and there Daddy was, sitting on the garden bench and looking out at the sea. Mentally, Gwen goes through a checklist:

Is Daddy holding a map or a logbook? No.

Is Daddy sharpening his sword? No.

Is Daddy talking to anyone? No.

Then Daddy probably isn’t busy.

Mind made up, she makes her way to her father.

“Daddy?” she asks.

Daddy startles, and looks over at her.

Gwen’s daddy is Fjord, the biggest strongest best sailor on the Menagerie Coast—no, the whole world! He’s a _merchant_ , a _businessman,_ and he is very very rich, which makes Gwen and Mama very very rich too. All the people on the docks salute Daddy, and call him Captain Tusktooth very respectfully, and sometimes when she tags along on the docks they call her Little Lady Tusktooth even though Gwen doesn’t have any tusks. She’s a _tiefling._ She has _horns._

Daddy’s a half-orc though, so maybe that’s why. 

“What is it, my little bubble?”

“Will you teach me magic?”

Daddy jolts.

“What brought on that idea?”

“Luc wants to be an adventurer when he’s twenty-five, and I want to be one too.”

“Luc? Luc Brenatto? Wants to be an adventurer?” Daddy starts laughing. “What’d Veth say ‘bout that?”

“He said that she said he can go when he’s twenty-five because Aunt Veth was twenty-five when _she_ started adventuring,” Gwen reports. “And I asked if I could come too, and he said yes, but when _I’m_ twenty-five, and also I have to know lots of magic because you can’t be an adventurer without magic.”

“What about Beau? Beau doesn’t have magic.”

“Aunt Beau can _punch ghosts_ ,” she says. “I don’t think you can do that without magic, Daddy.”

Daddy opens his mouth, then closes it again. “And you want to learn magic?”

“Yes Daddy please! Please teach me!”

Daddy looks at her, and Gwen does her absolute best to be the very very cutest and best little girl ever. She opens her eyes up really wide and looks at Daddy pleadingly.

“I’m not so sure I like the idea of you bein’ an adventurer,” he says. “I want you to be safe, and adventurin’ isn’t easy, little bubble-mine.”

Gwen opens her eyes wider and says, “Daddy _pleaaaaase_.”

Daddy laughs. “You’re startin’ school soon, right?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she says.

“If you come home with good grades at the end of first grade, I’ll consider teachin’ you,” Daddy says.

Gwen pouts. “But Daddy that’s so far awaaaay! I’ll be seven then!”

Daddy laughs, and kisses the top of her head. “That’s not so far away, bubble-mine. And anyway, you won’t need the magic until you’re twenty-five, right?”

He stands up to leave.

“Daddy where are you going?”

He nods towards the sea. “Ball-Eater’s leaving port in a few hours. Got cargo to Waterdeep.”

“But Daddy, you just _got here_!” Gwen says, distressed.

“That’s how it is, my little bubble,” Daddy says, and hugs her. “Love you, Gwen.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” Gwen says softly, and watches her father leave.

***

Gwen, age seven, is miserable.

She sits crisscross applesauce outside her classroom, a glass pressed to the door and against her ear as she listens to Mr. Binney tell Mama all about how she’s a _**big failure**_.

“She is such an intelligent child,” she hears Mr. Binney say, in his low, gentle voice. “Easily one of the cleverest children I’ve ever taught. But Mrs. Lavorre—”

“It’s Ms. Lavorre,” Mama corrects.

“Oh, my apologies. Ms. Lavorre, she simply won’t pay attention. If it doesn’t interest her, she won’t listen. Her grades in the arts—music, dance, poetry, acting, drawing and crafting and so on—are stellar, but her math and science are suffering. I know she can do the arithmetic. I know she knows the material. But she simply won’t do the examinations and quizzes. Or if she does, she turns them in with only half the questions filled in.” Even through the muffled door and the glass, Gwen can hear the sadness and disappointment in Mr. Binney’s voice.

“I see.” Mama’s voice is tight. “Do you have any idea why Gwen might be struggling?”

“When I ask her, Ms. Lavorre, she says things like ‘there was a bird outside’, ‘I didn’t notice,’ ‘I don’t know,’ ‘I forgot.’ She’s so clever, Ms. Lavorre, I honestly don’t understand—”

Gwen hears Mama stand up, and immediately she scurries to the chair set outside the door and opens her sketchbook, trying to seem as if she had been drawing the whole time. A moment later the door opens, and Mama walks out, her expression strained.

“Gwen,” Mama calls, and Gwen stands up. “Time to go.”

“Yes, Mama,” Gwen says miserably.

***

“What’s wrong, Gwen?” Mama asks, once they’re at home and sitting in the living room. Her voice is low and soft and soothing, and Gwen hates it. “I know you were listening at the door when Mr. Binney and I were talking. What’s wrong? How can I help you?”

Gwen keeps her eyes stubbornly on the mural on the far wall.

The mural had been there as long as Gwen could remember. It was all blue waves and seafoam, crashing on the white beach, and the Mighty Nein were all there, splashing in the water. Aunt Veth was surrounded by seagulls. Uncle Caleb, distinct with his red hair, was floating on the waves. The Ball-Eater, with a Captain Tusktooth flag, was over in the distance.

“Gwen, darling,” Mama implores. Gwen feels her eyes fill with tears.

“I don’t _know_ , Mama,” she says, voice wobbling. “The questions aren’t hard I know I can do them but then I’m sitting there and I’m looking at the problems and then they’re really hard and Mama I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I swear I tried Mama I swear I tried and _Daddy promised he would teach me magic if I did well and I didn’t do well, Mama,_ ** _I didn’t do well_** —”

She breaks down into tears.

“Oh, darling, darling,” Mama says, and runs to hug her. Mama’s arms are soft and blue and she smells like lavender, and her pretty dress gets all stained with Gwen’s tears as she cries into Mama. “I tried, Mama, I tried, I don’t know why I couldn’t—”

“Hush, baby, it’s all right,” Mama whispers. “I’ve got you. I have you, baby. It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

She cries for a long long time, and Mama rocks her softly, humming.

Gwen tunes in to the hum, feeling her breathing adjust as she focuses on the vibrations of Mama’s chest. 

“Daddy promised he would teach me magic if I did well,” she hiccups.

“I’m sure he will,” Mama soothes her. “But guess what? You have a mama and an Uncle Caleb and an Aunt Veth who will teach you magic too! Because remember, we’re going to Rosohna next week!”

“Next week?!” Gwen nearly shrieks. “But Mama, we weren’t supposed to go until next month!”

“Well, Beau and Yasha said they were going to drop by this week, but they wouldn’t be here next month,” Mama says. “So we’re going early so we can see them!”

Gwen squeals again, all tears forgotten. Mama presses a kiss to her hair, and Gwen can feel the smile.

***

Gwen peeks around the corner, hiding herself from Mama’s, Uncle Caleb’s, Aunt Beau’s, and Aunt Yasha’s views.

They’re in Uncle Caleb’s house now, not the Xhorhaus. To be specific, all the adults are sitting in Uncle Caleb’s living room, sipping Uncle Caduceus’s tea, and softly discussing Gwen.

She presses against the stone wall, and sinks down on the soft, warm carpet.

“It’s a concentration issue, her teacher tells me,” Mama says. Gwen focuses on the bookshelves filling the walls beside the couches, instead of on the wringing of Mama’s hands. “He says she’s very intelligent, but she either focuses too much on something or doesn’t notice it at all.”

Aunt Beau scoffs. “Of course she’s very intelligent. That mother—” she coughs. “That man has eyes, at fffff-reaking least.”

“Censoring your language, Beauregard?” Uncle Caleb says, a half-smile on his face. “She isn’t even here.”

“Listen, you fucker, little pitchers have big ears—FUCK! How can we help her? Did he say anything?”

“He didn’t have any good suggestions,” Mama frowns. “He just said that she excels in—dance, and music, and art, and wouldn’t _apply herself_ to math and science.”

Aunt Yasha frowns. “Why do we need her to… _apply herself,_ when she doesn’t want to? She’s a good, kind girl and she’s happy and she’s…safe. Why do we need to ask more of her than that?”

Uncle Caleb says quietly, “Because she has…so much potential, Yasha. It would be a shame if she did not become all that she could be.”

Quietly, Mama says, “Gwen herself would never be happy until she was _all that she could be._ ”

“Dance, music, art, but not math and science?” Aunt Beau, brow furrowed, leans forward. “Hey, to be honest, that sounds a bit like me as a kid. Couldn’t sit in a chair and just…listen to some fuckin’ idiots talk. If Gwen would rather dance or, I don’t know, paint dicks or sing or something, than listen to some boring old man talk about, I don’t fucking know, chemical reactions or something—”

“First of all, Gwen is seven and should not know anything about dicks,” Uncle Caleb interrupts, “and second of all, Veth would be very upset about you not respecting chemical reactions. Those make explosions, Beauregard.”

Aunt Beau barks a laugh. “Where is Veth, anyway?”

“Work ran long,” Uncle Caleb says. “She will be back in two days, though.”

Aunt Beau makes a _hmm_ sound, and then throws back her tea. “God, Deucey’s tea. Fuckin’ great, man.”

The adults sit in silence for a moment. Gwen leans her forehead against the wall, eyelids beginning to droop.

“You should, I don’t know, teach her an instrument or something,” Aunt Beau says suddenly.

“What?” Mama asks.

“Yeah!” Aunt Beau says, a little loudly. “There’s this kid at the Cobalt Soul right now, can’t fuckin’ sit still or focus on the research—which, honestly, _who can_? Shut up, Caleb. But hand him a flute and he’ll doot-doot away for hours.

“And then there’s me. Still can’t meditate sitting still worth shit, but when I’m doing my pull-ups or whatever—I don’t know, man. Maybe she’ll, I don’t fuckin’ know, concentrate so hard on the music it’ll teach her to, pah, _apply herself_ elsewhere?”

“That’s a good idea,” Aunt Yasha says softly. “Beau, didn’t we find a lyre in that last cave we were in?”

“We’re giving her a lyre we got off _a dead body_?”

“We have done so much worse and so much odder,” Uncle Caleb points out.

Aunt Beau snorts. “Point taken.”

They continue talking on about other things, but Gwen’s eyelids are so heavy, and Uncle Caleb’s carpet is really soft, and…

She only vaguely feels someone scooping her up, tucking her into bed, and kissing her good night.

***

The next day, Aunt Beau seeks her out.

“Hey bratling,” she says, looking up at Gwen. Gwen, up in the Xhortree and stuffing lemon bars into her mouth, waves at her aunt.

“Hi, Auntie!” she says, crumbs spewing out. “Oh no, sorry.”

“Don’t let your uncle see that,” Aunt Beau advises, and then leaps up lightly and lands in the tree branch beside Gwen. “Got you something.”

Gwen’s eyes go wide. “Is it a ring? Is it jewels? Is it lemons? Is it _a ring with a jewel shaped like a lemon_?”

Aunt Beau laughs uproariously. “Goddaaaaa—ang, you’re definitely Jester and Fjord’s kid. Nah, bratling, no jewels for you this time. Here.”

She holds out a lyre to Gwen.

Gwen’s eyes go very, very wide.

The lyres in her textbooks had boring old brown wood for both sound chest and arms. _This_ lyre is made of deep black wood that cracked and was filled in with gold. Large cracks run across the sound chest, and gold glimmers within.

Gwen wracks her mind for the bestest most awesome words she learned in poetry class—this _ravishing exquisite stupendous breathtaking_ lyre that Aunt Beau is showing her.

She reaches out one teal finger to touch, and the material _tingles_.

She nearly jerks back with a cry. But it’s not a bad tingle, but like…like the magic stuff Uncle Caleb sometimes lets her handle. There’s magic in this lyre, and as she runs her hands across the arms (where the gold spiders out in thin tendrils), it’s like it’s calling to her.

“Go on, then,” Aunt Beau says, pushing it at her, “take it.”

She doesn’t see Aunt Beau, she doesn’t see the magic light glimmering through the green leaves of the Xhortree. All there is, is this black and gold lyre, beckoning to her.

She reaches out and takes it, and runs wondering fingers across the black strings. They give a gentle, nearly soundless _twang_.

The sound runs down Gwen’s spine.

“Aunt Beau,” she says wonderingly, “it’s _beautiful_. Thank you so much.”

When she looks up, Aunt Beau is grinning, blue eyes crinkled in delight, teeth bared and bright. Gwen tests the strings, and the resulting sound makes her shiver.

“Better than lemons, bratling?”

Gwen hesitates, looking at the box of lemon bars sitting beside her. “Well…”

Aunt Beau’s huge bellow of laughter causes some of the branches to shake.

“Know any songs?” she says after, ruffling Gwen’s hair. “Jester’s paying a hehhh—ck of a lot of money for your schooling. You should know some music.”

“I do, but…” Gwen runs her fingers across the black strings, thrilling again to feel the magic tickle against her. “I don’t know how to play a lyre. I can play a flute, a little, but not a lyre.”

“It isn’t that hard. Can I borrow it for a second?” Gwen hands it over to her aunt, and Aunt Beau positions her hands on either side of the lyre. “Here, here’s a pretty simple chord—”

She strums, and there’s no magic in it, just sound. Gwen wrinkles her nose, wondering.

“You watching? Now you try.”

Gwen takes the lyre and does the chord Aunt Beau did. She’s a little clumsy, but Aunt Beau guides her fingers, and after a while she’s able to play that one chord.

“Okay, now try this one next…”

By the time her stomach starts to rumble, Gwen has mastered four chords, and she’s begging her aunt to do a full song.

“Come on, Auntiiiieeee,” Gwen whines. “Pleaaaase.”

Aunt Beau frowns. “I’m pretty sure Jes told you not to whine.”

“Aaaaunntttiieeee.” Gwen looks up at her aunt and makes her eyes as big as they could go. “Auuunntttt Beaauuuu pleaaase.”

“I can’t fffff—reaking sing, bratling.”

Gwen places a teal hand on Aunt Beau’s brown hand. “That’s not true, Auntie, everyone can sing.”

“Doesn’t mean everyone _should_ ,” Aunt Beau says. “Have you heard Veth—nothing, I said nothing.” She takes the lyre.

“Treating your aunt like this,” Aunt Beau mutters theatrically, putting her hands into position, “when she went and kkkiiii—got you a nice lyre from a man. If I didn’t love you so much, bratling…”

But there’s a slight quirk to her lips.

“What song?”

“Anything you want, Auntie!”

“I don’t actually know that many songs…hmm.” Aunt Beau starts moving her fingers across the fingers, as if trying to find the right ones to strum. “ _ **Crush a bit, roll it up, take a hit, feelin’ lit, feelin’ light, 2AM, summer night**_ —wait no ffffreaking way.” She glanced at Gwen guiltily. “Maybe not that song.”

“Yes that song!”

“Brat,” Aunt Beau mutters, but she’s grinning. She starts to strum again, singing softly, “ _ **If I fall, if I die, know I lived it to the fullest…If I fall if I die, know I lived and missed some bullets. I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know everything that shine ain't always gonna be gold…I’ll be fine if I get it, I’ll be good…**_ And that’s all I remember of the song. Your turn, bratling. Did you notice what chords I used?”

She pushes the lyre into Gwen’s hands, then claps her own together, looking at Gwen as if to say, _Well?_

Gwen takes the lyre, and positions her fingers. She glances hesitantly at her aunt, who nods encouragingly.

“ _ **I’m in the pursuit of happiness and I know everything that shines ain’t always gonna be gold,**_ ” she begins.

She tips her face up to the lights, eyes closed, feeling the strings sing under her fingers, feeling the words vibrate in her throat. As she sings the last words of the song, the magic of the lyre settles into her, like a puzzle piece slotting into place.

When she opens her eyes, Aunt Beau is smiling, and the lyre fits perfectly in her hands.

“Aunt Beau?” she asks.

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever catch happiness?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your song,” Gwen says. “I’m in the pursuit of happiness. Did you ever catch it?”

“Nah, Gwen, I didn’t catch it,” Aunt Beau says. “It found _me_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**_Rainbow Connection x Dancing Lights_ **

Gwen spends the next few days carrying her lyre around, playing and replaying the chords Aunt Beau had taught her. She carries it to the library, she carries it to mealtimes, she carries it up the Xhortree—

Which, inevitably, is her downfall.

Uncle Caleb had gotten her a book on basic musical theory, which she had been poring over for hours. She sits crisscross applesauce with her back to the trunk, lyre in her hands and book spread out before her. Her brow furrows as she tries to decipher the instructions, lip bitten and hands positioned _just so_ —

“Hi Gwen,” Luc’s voice whispers in her ear.

Gwen shrieks in surprise, and down goes book, lyre, and little girl all.

She only has a moment to register she’s falling, and then there’s a _thud_ and a _crack_ and she’s on the ground.

“GWEN!” Luc shouts, and there’s the pattering of feet and Luc’s peering at her, brown eyes wide and terrified. “Gwen, are you okay?”

“M’fine…” she groans, struggling to sit up from where she’d fallen on her side.

“Did you hit your head?”

“…don’t think so?”

Luc extends one hand to her, and Gwen hauls herself up—

And that’s when the pain hits, and she screams.

“Gwen! Gwen Gwen Gwen Gwen! Where does it hurt?”

“M-my leg,” she sobs. “I—Luc I think I broke it I think I broke it Luc it hurts it hurts it _huuuuurts_ —”

“UNCLE CAAAAALEB!” Luc shouts as loudly as he can. “UNCLE CALEB, GWEN IS HUUUUURT! MOM! AUNT BEAU? AUNT YASHA? AUNT JESTER?”

“Mama went back to—to Nicodranas today,” Gwen hiccups, tears streaming down her face. “And-and-and Aunt Beau and Aunt Yasha are visiting the Empress—”

“It’s gonna be all right, Gwen,” Luc says fiercely. He bends a bit of copper wire into a loop, and points downward at the floor. “Uncle Caleb,” he says into the loop, “Gwen fell off the tree and I think she broke her leg. What do I do? Please reply to this message.”

A silence.

“He isn’t responding. Maybe the spell didn’t reach him.” He frowns, and looks at Gwen, who’s leaning against him, crying. “Can you walk?”

Gwen shakes her head.

“Okay, okay, okay. It’s gonna be okay, Gwen. Just…”

He puts her arms over one shoulder, then hauls her up. Gwen squeaks in surprise, and then her whole body is settled over Luc’s shoulders. His left arm hooks securely around her knees.

“Don’t move too much,” Luc warns. “I don’t want to aggravate your broken leg.”

Gwen nods, the tears still falling. “It hurts,” she says plaintively.

“I know, Gwen,” Luc says soothingly. “Close your eyes and try not to think about it, okay? We’ll get you to Uncle Caleb and he’ll fix it.”

“Uncle Caleb fixes everything,” Gwen agrees softly. And then: “Luc, what does agg-ra-vate mean?”

“It means to make things worse.”

“Oh.” A few more tears drip down Gwen’s face, but Luc is hugging her real tight and it hurts but she’s safe, so she closes her eyes and tries not to sob out loud as Luc carries her down the many many tower steps of the Xhorhaus.

***

Later that night, Gwen blinks awake to find Uncle Caleb standing at the doorway of her room, looking at her.

“Hi, Uncle,” she says softly, waving.

“Hello, schatzchen,” Uncle Caleb says, coming over to her bedside. The room is dark, as is the sky outside, but Gwen’s dark vision can pick out the worry in Uncle Caleb’s eyes, how his mouth is pinched. “Are you well?”

“I’m okay, Uncle,” she says. “It doesn’t hurt any more, the clerics fixed it really good! But they weren’t as good as Mama. Mama only has to _say something_ and the hurt is gone, you know! But they had to touch the—” she shudders, “the bone.”

“Oh?” Uncle Caleb says. “Jester does not kiss the hurt and make it go away by magic?”

“Of _course_ she kisses it, Uncle Cayyleeebbb,” Gwen says, offended. “But the magic is the Traveler’s! The love is _hers._ ”

“Oh?”

“Yeah! The Traveler gives her the magic to keep me safe and happy, but her love isn’t magic.” She sighs. “I wish I knew magic. Mama says she’ll ask the Traveler when I’m older, but…I’m so _tired_ of waiting until I’m older.”

“I don’t believe that, schatzchen,” Uncle Caleb says softly, and then, quickly, “What is that about wanting to learn magic?”

Gwen explains about Luc’s intentions of becoming an adventurer, and how Luc said she could go too once she was twenty-five, but that she would have to learn magic as well.

“…and I would ask Mama to teach me, only she’s really powerful and I don’t think I’m big enough for big magic, so I thought I’d ask Daddy, but Daddy said—” Against Gwen’s will, the tears gather in her eyes. “Daddy said he’d teach me magic if I got good grades, but I didn’t get good grades even though _I tried Uncle Caleb I really tried_ —”

And then she’s crying, big ugly tears rolling down her cheeks, gasping for breath and finding the air short—awful little-girl sobs that don’t suit a big girl like her, and then Uncle Caleb is climbing into her bed being super super careful not to agg-ra-vate her arm, and then she buries her face into his shirt and cries harder.

“Oh, schatzchen,” he whispers, “little treasure, it’s all right.”

“No,” she sniffles, “it’s not, it’s not!”

He begins stroking her hair, pushing his hand through her loose locks. “You should braid this, schatzchen,” he says, “or it will snarl and tangle in the morning.” He brushes through the strands with his hands, and then Gwen feels him gently tugging and twisting, braiding her hair.

“As for eldritch blast,” he says, “I am afraid I never learned that spell. But I can teach you a different spell, if you would like?”

“Really? Is it something cool? Can it do a big _poomf_ like eldritch blast does?”

“No,” Uncle Caleb says, and then he holds the braid and ties it off and then he claps his hands together. _Poof poof poof poof,_ and then all of a sudden four balls of light are around them, bobbing and shifting color, orange and blue and teal. Gwen gasps.

“Dancing lights,” Uncle Caleb says. “Among the first spells I learned.” 

“Teach me, Uncle Caleb, teach me!”

He pauses, and looks at her meaningfully.

“ _Please_?”

“Good girl,” he says, and kisses her forehead. Gwen feels warm and happy all over, and if she wasn’t all wrapped up in the blankets she would have done a big wriggle. “Now, the key to dancing lights is concentration…”

It doesn’t really go well.

Gwen is BAD at concentrating, okay, Mr. Binney said that, he said her attention kept wandering off, and she keeps following Uncle Caleb’s instructions but her lights keep fizzing and disappearing. She manages to make green and blue, but they don’t even last FOUR SECONDS before they poof out of existence.

“Maybe I’m just stupid,” she says, voice wobbling, as her lights disappear for the millionth time. She feels tears, awful painful stinging tears gathering in her eyes. “Maybe I’m just all wrong, because you said this was a cantrip, and I can’t even get the cantrip right—”

Uncle Caleb tips her chin up, and his blue eyes blaze into her own as he says, “You are _not_ stupid, Guinevere Lavorre. You are a wonderful, intelligent, lively, lovely girl, and I love you very much. Do you understand?”

Gwen ducks her head, tears stinging worse now.

“Gwen. Do you understand?”

She refuses to look at him.

“Schatzchen…” He breathes out, and it sounds sad. Tears fall down Gwen’s face because she doesn’t _want_ to make Uncle Caleb sad.

Then her lyre, the lyre Aunt Beau gave her, comes zooming towards her and lands on her lap.

“Here, schatzchen,” he says softly, “how about you try this, hmm? What if you play some music as you try to cast the spell?”

“But why would that help? Isn’t that just two things to focus on instead of just one? And I already have trouble concentrating—”

“It is just a little experiment, schatzchen. If it does not work then it does not work. Will you try? For me?”

“…okay, Uncle Caleb.”

She takes her lyre in hand, and runs her hand across the black and gold sound box. It tingles under her fingers, like it’s saying hello.

 _You and me, we gotta do this right, okay,_ she thinks. Maybe she’s making it up, but it feels like the lyre thrums in agreement.

She strums a few chords, just to test it out you know, and the magic surges around her fingers like, like, like the fishes in the aquarium at school, like they’re licking at her fingers.

“Now imagine the lights as you’re strumming, schatzchen,” Uncle Caleb says, his voice low and floaty in the darkness. “Don’t look up, just play music and imagine light. You can close your eyes if you want.”

So she does. She blocks out Uncle Caleb’s lights, which have been bobbing around all the time, and squeezes her eyelids shut real tight until she can only see, kind of, the sparklies when you squeeze your eyes shut real tight. The music surges around her fingers, and she finds herself humming along…

_Light, light, light, blue and teal and green like me and Mama and Papa…and one orange like Uncle Caleb!_

Uncle Caleb’s voice has a smile in it as he says, “Open your eyes, Guinevere.”

She does, and—“Oh!”

Around them now are _eight_ lights, four Uncle Caleb’s, all warm reddish-orangey-ambery, and four that are _hers._ She can tell, because one is blue like Mama and one is teal like her and one is green like Papa and the last one is orangey-red like Uncle Caleb’s hair! She laughs in delight.

“Do you see, Uncle Caleb, I did it, I did it!”

“You did!” Uncle Caleb’s lights all push together and form one big light, and then they begin to go all goopy and warm and then they become a person made of light! They’re orange-gold and shaped like a person wearing a big flappy coat, like Uncle Caleb’s very pretty purple coat! Except this one is orange-gold because it’s an orange-gold light person.

The light person bows, and extends an orange-gold hand to her own four lights.

“Huh? Um…what do you want? What can I do for you?” Gwen asks, as politely as she can manage.

“They are called dancing lights,” Uncle Caleb says. “They want to dance.”

“Huh? But…how do I do that?”

“Make the lights into a person,” he says. “You can do it.”

She scrunches her face up, and says to her lights, “Be a person!”

Slowly, super super slowly, so slow Gwen almost thinks they’re not gonna do it, her lights push together and become a person! But only a blobby kind of person, not like Uncle Caleb’s light person. So she focuses harder, and then her light person becomes a nice teal color and then she wears a big poofy ballgown, and then she takes the other light person’s hand.

“Um…now what?”

Uncle Caleb casts something, and then music starts to play from somewhere in her room. Then softly, he begins to sing, _“[Why are there so many songs…about rainbows…and what’s on the other side…](https://open.spotify.com/track/0dDdc2ugBXcZkO00xvR6wZ?si=hb_WAuP4S_enp8LMuAmxbA)”_

“Oh!” Gwen exclaims. “I know this song!” She snatches up her lyre, only just now realizing she stopped playing. Her lights fizzle, and she panics, but then she starts following along to the music and her light person glows brighter.

She sees Uncle Caleb smiling, his face lit up with the blobby light persons. He sings low and soft and pretty, and his light person begins to step forward, step-side, close-step, repeat…Gwen recognizes it as a waltz, and her light person follows along. Her light person’s hand is on Uncle Caleb’s light person’s shoulder, and their hand is around her waist, and they glide around Gwen’s dark bedroom, lighting up and leaving a glowing trail as they go.

Uncle Caleb gestures, and his light person begins to go upward, like they’re going up stairs. Gwen’s light person follows, twirling as they go, and her skirt swishes out and sparkles.

“Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,” Uncle Caleb sings. Gwen’s fingers dance across her lyre: “The lovers, the dreamers and me…”

“All of us under its spell,” they sing together, Uncle Caleb’s voice low and rumbly, Gwen’s high and clear. “We know that it’s probably— _definitely!_ ” Uncle Caleb laughs at her addition. “—Magic…”

“Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection…the lovers, the dreamers…” The light persons fling their hands out, and twirl to opposite sides of Gwen’s room. “And me…”

The last notes die away, and Uncle Caleb’s light person bows to Gwen’s light person. Gwen makes her light person curtsy to them, and then she fades away.

Uncle Caleb’s light person floats over to Gwen, and pats her head. Then they too disappear.

Gwen puts her lyre away, and hugs Uncle Caleb real tight.

“Thank you,” she whispers, “ _thank you,_ Uncle Caleb.”

She feels him kiss the top of her horn. “Any time, schatzchen.”


End file.
